Cliven Bundy, a cattle rancher in Nevada, has been fighting the government over grazing rights on public land for nearly a quarter century. In 1993, Bundy began refusing to pay government fees required to allow his cattle to exploit public lands. In 1998, the government issued a court order telling Bundy to remove his cows from the land, as part of an effort to protect the endangered desert tortoise located there. And in July 2013, a federal court ordered Bundy to get his cattle off public land within 45 days or they would be confiscated. The confiscation began this month, and the cattle will be sold to pay off the $1 million in fees and trespassing fines Bundy owes.

Night after night on Faux News Channel, Sean Hannity sympathizes with Bundy’s claims against the government and cheerleads for a gun battle. Faux News goes ballistic about “takers” unless it’s a right-winger who’s trying to get something for free, and then suddenly not paying your own way is okay or even downright laudable.

This conflict arises out of rancher Cliven Bundy’s many years of illegally grazing his cattle on federal lands. In 1998, a federal court ordered Bundy to cease grazing his livestock on an area of federal land known as the Bunkerville Allotment, and required him to pay the federal government $200 per day per head of cattle remaining on federal lands. Around the time it issued this order, the court also commented that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Fifteen years later, Bundy continued to defy this court order.

Last October, the federal government returned to court and obtained a new order, providing that “Bundy shall remove his livestock from the former Bunkerville Allotment within 45 days of the date hereof, and that the United States is entitled to seize and remove to impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass after 45 days of the date hereof.” A third federal court order issued the same year explains that Bundy did not simply refuse to stop trespassing on federal lands — he actually expanded the range of his trespassing. According to the third order, “Bundy’s cattle have moved beyond the boundaries of the Bunkerville Allotment and are now trespassing on a broad swath of additional federal land (the “New Trespass Lands”), including public lands within the Gold Butte area that are administered by the BLM, and National Park System land within the Overton Arm and Gold Butte areas of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.” The third order also authorizes the federal government to “impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass.”

Drudge is now promoting an article from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website Infowars.com that suggests BLM and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) are working together to take over the ranch so the Chinese government can turn it into a solar farm.

Too bad media matters “forgot” to mention that Harry Reid (the only affiliated elected representative to remain silent) and his son Rory Reid have a financial interest in this. The Fed lands and the Bundy ranch are within the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone; an area promised to a China solar energy company EEN Energy Group which the Reids have private investments. Rory Reid is the CEO of EEN. Harry Reid used BLM to clear the land of the ranchers and force local ranchers to sell their property at reduced values; what good is a ranch without grazing lands.
The cattle roundup, at taxpayer expense, was part of the private interest of the Reids to make way for the China company’s development of that land.
Folks, all you have to do is google this stuff to find out for yourselves; but I guess that might require some work on your part. Can’t do that when all you have to do is allow media matters to spoon feed you its crap.

I’ve never been into guns, but my brother-in-law, (who wrote for Field and Stream), took me out shooting and must have paid a dollar to let me shoot a bullet at an empty coke can from about 25 yards away.

No violations of criminal law cited in the op-ed you linked to, brewski. Not one. And I think anybody in the Tea-GOP has lost the right to complain when President Obama occasionally finds a way around their unprecedented obstructionism.

It’s downright laughable to talk about putting the current President behind bars after what the Bush administration got away with.

Our constitution was created entirely to have checks and balances. Didn’t you have 7th grade civics? The American people voted for the GOP in 2010 for a reason. I am sorry you don’t like America or Americans.

You wanted to know why President Obama isn’t in jail. The answer is, he hasn’t committed any crimes that anyone except powerless progressives are willing to recognize. The op-ed you linked to does not accuse the President of anything that’s punishable by imprisonment.

The Tea-GOP had their moment of triumph in 2010 because they promised “jobs-jobs-jobs.” They totally lost the 2012 election because they didn’t deliver on their promise.

The GOP won in 2010 because of Obamacare. Period. They were elected to be obstructionist. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you get to waive the constitution away. What is it with you people and laws that you don’t like so much?

In 2010 the GOP said jobs-jobs-jobs would be their first and only priority. They kept saying “jobs-jobs-jobs” just like that, over and over. We are still waiting for that Republican jobs bill four years later. But they don’t even want to extend unemployment insurance for the people who lost their jobs due to austerity budgeting.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act or “JOBS Act”, is a law intended to encourage funding of United States small businesses by easing various securities regulations. It passed with bipartisan support, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 5, 2012.

That was nothing more than an election-year gimmick that didn’t solve the unemployment problem, which I note is still severe. Austerity budgeting cost millions of jobs at a time American needed MORE jobs. Middle-class wages have remained flat. The top 1 Percent have reaped 90 percent of the economic gains since 2009. And House Republicans are still refusing to extend unemployment insurance.

I actually know about this law quite a bit and have been to several conferences on it. It is probably the best law that has passed in years. There was broad support by the WH, GOP and most Dems. If only healthcare reform had been negotiated in such terms we would all be better off. But the corrupt thugs just had to pass that shit-pie of pork that their bundlers demanded. So better laws get passed in split governments than in monopoly governments. That’s your lesson.

Unemployment is still severe? What? Obama keeps telling us how good it is. Are you calling him a lair? You must be racist.

Thanks for making me look. My perceptions may be skewed by the fact that several people I know have been searching for jobs without success for many months. But the Calculated Risk very depressing graph indicates that FINALLY we are almost out of the hole that Bush’s Great Recession put us in. Of course, the graph doesn’t show how many high-paying jobs have been replaced by poverty-level jobs (answer: a lot).

The constitution was not built to obstruct the passing of laws. Infact it does the opposite by allowing the document to be expanded upon instead of ending up having outdated laws such as the 3/5ths compromise and ending up having the document replaced after a revolt. The constitution instead made it so that no person or group has too much power. Obviously that has failed ever since 2011.

It takes three bodies to pass a law. Three. Not two. Not one. Three. All three have to agree. Period. End of story. Go back to the 7th grade and read it again. So if the American people voted in favor of a divided government in 2010 then it is not for you to question that result. The American people voted for divided government. If they wanted every piece of crap passed without question then Pelosi would still be speaker. They didn’t. She isn’t.

For years, we have had swat teams in full military gear invading LEGAL drug dispensaries, but we can’t arrest a very small group of ILLEGAL, gun toting idiots who want to start a second civil war over a cattle rancher, because a fake “news” channel imported from England by a tabloid maven tells them to.

I’m sorry, I did my share of LSD in the 70’s, but I’ve never seen anything like this!

Where is the media on researching the family “roots” of Cliven Bundy? If he claims his family has been in that are being Mormons for 100 years+ then his family may have been involved in the Mountain Meadow Massacre and practiced polygamy. Actually polygamy is still being practiced in that region that straddles the Utah/Nevada line between Mesquite and St. George.

Well, I don’t know about Cliven Bundy’s roots. I hate to even bring this up, but if the “Branch Davidians” were my next door neighbors, I would have been happy to have Janet Reno show up and do something about it.

Interesting family history related to the Bundy Ranch bunch. Mr. Bundy’s family in the maternal side were polygamists and one of his relatives was involved in the Mountain Meadow Massacre: Dudley Leavitt.

It takes three bodies to pass a law. Three. Not two. Not one. Three. All three have to agree. Period. End of story. Go back to the 7th grade and read it again. So if the American people voted in favor of a divided government in 2010 then it is not for you to question that result. The American people voted for divided government. If they wanted every piece of crap passed without question then Pelosi would still be speaker. They didn’t. She isn’t.

It actually takes 2 to make a law, 3 if you consider a chamber as one and one can rule it unconstitutional if it contradicts the said constitution. But that is a measure to make sure that one group doesn’t have a stranglehold on the government. Historically, laws have been passed all the time. If there was a problem, they would do something about it. It’s this stupid thing called “Logic.” Nowadays, it’s so hard to pass a bill, even lobbying groups are having problems and losing money because even their influence can’t get a bill passed. The constitution was made to limit power, but that said power didn’t account for sabotage because the founding fathers couldn’t predict that immature republican manchildren would throw a fit because they lost the presidential election twice.

Rumor has it that oftentimes the actual crafting of ‘legislation’ is done by the industry hoping to benefit from self-same legislation. So add ONE to that ‘bodies’ mix.

And further rumor-mongering suggests that those powerful senators and congress-critters (gods among us) equally as often cannot find the time to actually read the proposed legislation before either thumbing it UP or down – depending on the mood of the moment and size of the check accompanying the bills. Consider taking away ONE from that bodies mix.

I would suggest that, in this globalized sphere we’ve conjured up for ourselves, the U. S. Congress can tie itself in knots blocking each and every bit of proposed legislation (for good reasons or bad), and the biggest result will be (and has been), that the giant global corporations, who used to find ownership of the U. S. Government advantageous, have had to create work-arounds that put the ‘obstruction’ in the shitter where it no longer impedes their direction. That’s where the U. S. Government is at present.

Thanks for providing the link to a very interesting and pertinent conversation about the evolution of capitalism.

I really hated to record Paul Krugman’s appearance and upload it to my little YouTube page, because I’m not worthy and I’m not sure if it’s allowed, but I don’t think anybody’s going to be looking for it on a blog about Cliven Bundy.

He starts out by apologizing to fellow Nobel Prize winner, (Joseph Stiglitz), for interrupting his presentation which had to be kept very short, by nudging him not to try to explain what he was going to try to explain. It was a great moment, because his colleague laughed along with him. I wish I had started recording sooner.

But here’s Krugman’s short take, and he’s the expert at keeping economic things succinct.

Janet Reno put us back on topic, linking to a concise and interesting piece about the Property Clause and other relevant points in constitutional law. Some of this also applies to the bizarre politics of Utah, where our legislature claims to own all the public lands in the state in contradiction to the U.S. and Utah Constitutions.

Of course brewski will quickly point out that Justin McAffee isn’t a constitutional lawyer. Which is irrelevant because none of this is rocket science.

I read the “story” and looked for evidence that Bundy is a pampered millionaire and I found none. Or is this just another lie from you people? What is wrong with you people that you have such a hard time with such simple concepts like facts and truth? Is it really that hard for you or can’t you help yourself?

I’ve never heard of a public land rancher who was not a millionaire. There is a simple explanation. The Taylor Grazing Act requires the holder of a federal grazing permit to own “base property” that’s big enough to maintain all his animals on. That usually means a million-dollar-plus ranch at today’s real estate prices.

Cliven Bundy’s 900+ head of cattle by themselves are worth a half million dollars. If his base property is worth $500,000 then he’s a millionaire. Of course, he OWES the BLM over $1 million…

Nothing happened because the BLM backed off, even releasing the 400 head of cattle they had already rounded up. Sean Hannity was rooting for Waco/Ruby Ridge, but he was disappointed because the feds showed restraint.

All the BLM has to do is place a lien on Bundy’s cows and he won’t be able to sell them. Whether that will resolve this , who knows? They guy is obviously beyond stubborn and he has gotten away with free grazing on our public lands for 20 years now.

Grazing fees are set by Congress at $1.35 a month for a cow and a calf, well below the market rate for private range. Federal land livestock grazing programs cost $144 million/year to run but collect only $21 million annually in fees paid by ranchers.

Simple answer. Sell rangeland at auction. No reason for the Federal government to continue to own land which has no special uniqueness. No need for any “amazing deals”. Get the government out of the rangeland leasing business.

The reason the Sagebrush Rebellion is a joke is because nobody, not a state government or a private owner, actually wants to bear the cost of owning and managing the public lands. If you offered to give it away for free they wouldn’t take it. It WAS free in the 19th Century and they didn’t take it!

Greedy people and corporations want to privatize the resources, not the land itself.

But I agree that the federal government ought to get out of the grazing business. Most people would rather see wild animals on our land than cows and sheep. Approximately 98 percent of livestock graze on private property. There’s no reason to subsidize millionaire ranchers like Bundy on our public lands.

I know people who graze cattle on huge tracts of land near Kenosh and other areas in Utah. There is definitely a private market for that kind of rangeland.

I agree that Bundy is totally in the wrong legally and what he says and does makes no sense. But should we be surprised by such lawlessness?

Lawlessness begets lawlessness. Congress exempts themselves from laws. The President ignores his own laws. The AG tells state AG’s not to enforce the law. If you breed a culture of lawlessness then what do you expect?

Of course, the good grazing and agricultural land from the public domain was privatized long ago. The BLM (formerly the General Land Office) retained what nobody wanted. It’s marginal rangeland, and most of it should not be open to grazing livestock.

As for lawlessness, I actually agree with you in principle although we might disagree on specifics. Bundy, however, has been refusing to pay grazing fees for 20 years, and his theory that the federal government has no authority over him dates back to the 1840s Mormon migration.

There are government owned parcels of land all over the place which private owners would love to get their hands on, but the government owns them due to various historical accidents. I know for a fact there are government owned parcels surrounded on 4 sides by private landowners in the middle of ski resorts and other prime development land, including rangeland. Sure, most of it is crap land. But a lot of it is not. A whole lot of it is just sitting there for no reason other than history.
In fact, the Feds use these parcels all the time for “swaps” so they can trade those government owned parcels for private parcels elsewhere where they want. Much of the base area of Snow Basin is a good example. Deer Valley has a lot of government owned land inside the resort and surrounded by condos on 4 sides. The feds have used these pieces as bartering chips to get some other concession they want. So is it incorrect to say that all good government land has been sold off.

Sure, if you want to talk about tiny parcels there is a legal mechanism for administrative land exchanges in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). Beyond that, the Property Clause in the U.S. Constitution gives Congress wide powers over public lands.

Some years ago there was a well-connected property owner in Hyde Park, Utah who was illegally using national forest land that was inside a wilderness area as if it was his private property. So then-Rep. Jim Hansen wrote legislation to give the guy five acres of our land for free, and subtract it from the wilderness and the National Forest System. Congress passed it, and it became law. Which makes me wonder if I too can get five acres without paying for it. 😉

Bundy and his band of outlaws are after 600,000 acres of our land. Gov. Herbert and his band of outlaws want to steal 30 million acres! There is a significant difference in scale.

OK, so you admit that the BLM owns tons of valuable land for no reason other than so that they might be able to do swaps in the future.

As for agricultural land, while it is true that a lot of BLM agricultural land is crap. There is plenty of it which is not. There is quite a lot of productive agricultural land all along I-15 that if auctioned today would be bought.

If some tiny little parcels have acquired value, then by all means swap them out. There are private lands that sit in the middle of wilderness areas and national parks that are waay over-valued because of proximity to federal land.

I still say that if you offered Bundy actual ownership of “his ranch,” as he calls it, at no cost, he would not take it. Because then he would have to pay taxes on it and pay all the costs of management.

The feds shouldn’t own any land. If you want to peruse the worst environmental disasters you can see them all of federal or states lands licensed out, often to foreign corporations who are unattachable for the damages.

As well if you are to entitle the feds to use our own tax dollars to buy lands that are privately held the inevitable will occur, the people will wind up landless in the country their forefathers built…paraphrased Jefferson quote.

for an excellent example of this truth check out Vermont, small it may be, but the feds own very little of it, about 90% of the land is privately owned. About the cleanest state with no additions to the giant messes dumped upon states by polluters granted federal licenses. Act 250 in Vermont set the tone over 35 years ago or so.

The west is the federal dumping ground, for toxic waste, playing with nuclear bombs and other worthless items. ( actually worse than worthless), and then kickback assignments which is about to be revealed surely to the dismay of Reid, and his criminal band of cronies.

Waking up…it isn’t just for babies.

The answer to your question is people who own lands are the best stewards, and that is proven over and over again, it is when the government owns land, or lands are held in common, that they are destroyed (see: tragedy of the commons) No one wishes to preside over a depreciating asset if they own it privately. Plain simple facts.

Now, if the Paiutes weren’t so ‘whiteness’ deficient, they’d certainly have ancestral claims to the Nevada land that Bundy is grazing. Not some white family who showed up much, much later to take advantage of Manifest Destiny’s indigenous genocide.

And word is – though the link has mysteriously disappeared – that The Bundys’ claims don’t go back anywhere near as far as he claims, but only to the 1940s

Cliven Bundy was actually on “Radio West” today with a smart guy, (Doug Fabrizio). Of course he knew he could do that, because Fabrizio asks hard questions, but would never do what the right does. What do you think would happen to Tim DeChristopher on the Sean Hannity show?

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Bundy said he still feels strongly about the need for sheriffs throughout the nation to take away weapons from federal law enforcement, and he said he believes God has told him as much.

“I have no idea what God wants done, but he did inspire me to have the sheriffs across the United States take away these weapons, disarm these bureaucracies, and he also gave me a little inspiration on what would happen if they didn’t do that,” Bundy said, according to the Tribune. “It was indicated that ‘this is our chance, America, to straighten this problem up. If we don’t solve this problem this way, we will face these same guns in a civil war.'”

My stepfather tried to warn me that life was going to be a big-honking challenge and being about 15 years old at the time, the only thing I really knew how to do was be antagonistic and refute him.

He was right!

Of course, what I didn’t know was that some of my life trials were going to be fighting hay-seed ranchers who thought God gave them our land. Jim Hansen rode into the sunset long ago. Let’s hope Cliven will pay his debt and do the same.

Watching live coverage of police attacking peaceful protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. None of the citizens were breaking the law, but SWAT conducted an assault firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. Before that, they arrested some reporters for no reason and told the media to turn off all cameras.

What a contrast to the behavior of law enforcement at the Bundy standoff.

It should be no surprise that a nation that pays another to bomb civilians, and bombs others without pause in its own right would have goon squad law enforcement who would terrorize and kill their own people domestically.

It follows does it not?

As my Opa said to me as a boy, that which you do to others outside your country in a goon suit will sooner than you think become your own miserable reality at home.

Welcome “home” fools…appears you can be made to rest forever at the hands of unregulated authority for no reason…but it will never be in peace. Americans are Fools.

Right, because at the Bundy standoff there were many Americans fully armed ready and willing to shoot to kill the goons.

Makes a difference when people have the means to fight back. Gets the goon squad thinkin’ maybe might not get home to kiss the wifey poo, hug the kids. The way it is meant to be in Constitutional America. The stalinists need to be afraid, very afraid of a populace they would abuse with impunity.

It’s a good thing the women took it upon themselves to place themselves bseteeen the two combatants, leaving it up to the goons to shoot them, which would of course resulted in all the goons getting shot.

Once the entire population is opposed to your goon squad ways, there is no place to hide, the people have found their courage, know who is out of control (that would be every aspect of the federal entity).and won’t back down. Game over. Government will stay within its constitutional aegis, or the entire deal goes into the crapper.

The entire US population vs. Govt. PS: the people know where all you and yours live in gummint. What you drive, what all your family members do,with what and where…yep..Snowden made sure of that, and the knowledge has been distributed. Tough break for gummint gone wild.

The website sucks..who has turned into what is now is? I realize there is no way to hide the obama disaster..but censorship? Or are just so stupid you don’t know how your spam filter is malfunctioning? Loser site.